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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Seriously Pink Door in Druid Hills

I was short cutting through Druid Hills this week and spotted this pink door.

You might prefer your pink door on a house of another color, maybe gray?

There are whole gaggles of Atlanta folks who've never been to Druid Hills. Unless you are headed to Emory University, or traipsing between Atlanta and Decatur, you'll miss it. It's not a manor house destination like Brookhaven and Buckhead, not Victorian eclectic like Inman Park.

I'd guess that every notable Atlanta architect has done renovations here. But Druid Hills Historic District rules prevent changes from showing on the street. There are just a few infills than might be teardowns.

Personally, I enjoy Druid Hills more in parts than as a total package.Click here to enlarge the pink door house: symmetry, roof, soffit detail, oval window, quoins (thanks to Dan for spelling correction), brick band, limestone door surround, leaded glass sidelights, 6 over 1 windows. This is an elegant, handsome home, that doesn't shout. Well I guess the pink door shouts a bit.

I can imagine this very house built today in Atlanta's most exclusive neighborhoods.

I think painting is one of the only way homeowners can rebel in their exteriors.

Walking through the neighborhood is the best way to see it because the best homes are the least obvious to spot. They're older and more overgrown or set back from the street, but they have some really fantastic details.

There are also these little maids' walks between every several houses that run east-west - the hired help used them back in the heyday of the neighborhood, and that's a great way to get closer and see how the homes have been altered over the decades.

I agree Christa. I like Druid Hills one house at a time. As a whole it's frozen in time. It's very walkable but most folks can't walk to anything commercial. Between Briarcliff and the Decatur post office, it's a high-end commerce free zone. Brookhaven is the same way.

I'm puzzled. Maybe pink is the owner's favorite color? Lullwater is one of my absolute favorite streets EVER. I have a dear friend who grew up in a house there and now that she and her sister are adults, her parents sold it. The new owner was nice enough to let my friend's family "borrow" their childhood home for her sister's wedding. There are absolutely beautiful bones on that street and I bet you could write for days, Terry!

Druid Hills is a suburb. As such they support a common vision of what the neighborhood was, is and will be. Sometimes their vision clashes with the surrounding areas as in opposition to using the existing rail line to connect the Eastlake MARTA station to Emory. At other times there is confluence of interests: Financial and legal input was critical to blocking the Jimmy Carter Freeway. More recently the AMAZING Olmstead Park improvements were largely funded by DH civic association.I mildly disagree with your comment that you are likely to see this type of home in an upscale setting. This home is "simply elegant". Many upscale homes these days require a lot more; more types of claddings, more roof angles, more size, more featuress (feature du jour: outdoor fireplace) more closets, more.... well just more.

The house with pink door (826 Oakdale Road) was built by my grandfather, Newton M. Yancey. He and his brother started the original Yancey Brothers, a truck body business, in 1910. The house remained in the Yancey family until about 2003. ---Doug Yanceydougyancey@bellsouth.net